Muni Cameras Catch Reporter in Transit-Only Lane

SFMTA has been using forward-facing cameras on Muni to catch drivers parked illegally in transit-only lanes. This time the ticket went to KRON 4’s tech reporter Gabe Slate, who looks pretty peeved about getting fined.

The transit lane camera enforcement isn’t new — it actually started in January of 2008. The pilot project installed cameras on some Muni buses to detect transit-lane parking violations. In February the Examiner reported that the program will be expanded to all Muni buses in the next 15 months.

KRON4’s Stanley Roberts had some level-headed tips: “My advice? Stay out of the transit lanes and the bus stops. Or better yet, some people should just get to the bus.”

The problem with that line of logic is that Muni inflicts far more severe delays on itself and its riders on a regular basis.

Every single day trains approaching and departing from Castro station move at about *a tenth* of their top speed because the MTA is too cheap to fix the track between Castro and Forest Hill.

Last night it took me fifteen minutes to get through West Portal. About five just waiting in line to get to the station. Another five stopped at the station doing god knows what. And yet another five when the supervisor stopped two Ls in opposite directions on Ulloa to switch drivers. The result? Blocked outbound traffic from the subway, and automobile, pedestrian, and train traffic in both directions on Ulloa.

This morning, the inbound train I was on turned around at West Portal. One lightly loaded two car train got crammed into one already crowded one car train along with all the other people already waiting for the phantom inbound service. I guarantee you that shuffle took more than ‘a minute’, and all the pedestrians shuffling to the platform blocked outbound traffic too.

This morning I also saw a taxi parked at a bus stop. The bus driver honked, and he moved. The bus was delayed all of two seconds.

I’ll tell you who I think deserves a ticket, and it ain’t the reporter or taxi driver.

If people who park in bus stops will get fined, will they also start fining MUNI bus drivers for not utilizing the (unoccupied) bus stops?

It seems that almost every time I find myself stuck behind a bus, the driver makes a half-assed attempt to pull over and inevitably blocks traffic anyway with the butt end of his bus blocking an entire lane.